Warsaw University

A 2022 report by the Union of Polish Metropolises showed that the number of inhabitants of Poland surpassed 41 million after the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in the first months after the start of the war, which the report describes as unprecedented in the history of the country.

Like many other Ukrainian refugees, upon arriving in Warsaw Iryna and her daughter were quickly hosted by a Polish family. But, as it was in many cases, the offer for housing was only short term, so mother and child had to move to another home, then a third one, all within one month of reaching Poland.

The endangered Sumatran Titan arum, a giant foul-smelling blossom also known as the corpse flower, went into a rare, short bloom at a botanical garden in Warsaw, drawing crowds who waited for hours to see it.

The conservatives in PiS, however, put income redistribution to the fore of the public agenda, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski even extolling people to read Capital in the 21st Century, the global bestseller by French economist Thomas Picketty that cast fresh light on the issue of inequality.

The support enjoyed by Poland's nationalist Law and Justice Party, PiS, cannot be explained by current theories of populism being applied to the rise of the right in Europe, a Polish sociologist and MEP candidate says.

"If you count the total number of PiS voters, there might not be that many but they do show up to vote," said Bartek Lech, an independent EU affairs analyst in Szczecin, northwest Poland.

The opposition's strategy, he said, "is not to take votes away from PiS - this is almost impossible. It is to mobilise the undecided and those who otherwise would not vote."

Olbia, the Ancient Greek colony in Ukraine, opposite Berezan island, was founded in the 7th century BC by colonists from Miletus. Its harbor was one of the main emporia on the Black Sea for the export of cereals, fish and slaves.